ducklings
by cateliot
Summary: May didn't seem like the "motherly" type. A look at the relationships that Agent May didn't expect to make throughout the years. A multi-shot. References: "F.Z.Z.T.", "Shadows", and "T.A.H.I.T.I.". Complete.
1. Skye

_I like the subtle motherly relationship that May has with all of her teammates. It's something I wish got explored more on the show because she shows a lot of her depth in her willingness to hurt for them. Tags to 1x14. Follow me on AO3 and tumblr for more of my SHIELD pieces, cateeliot, as I normally post all my stuff there before eventually posting it here. Reviews and feedback are appreciated._

* * *

Skye didn't know how hard it was to sneak with twelve stitches to the abdomen until she tried it in the middle of the night. She knew the others were asleep, but she couldn't doze off. After doing nothing all day, for _weeks_ , she couldn't stand just sleeping.

Sneaking out of the isolation cube on the Bus was easy enough, Simmons didn't know her passcode (Fitz's birthday, seriously how obvious could be she?) was an easily guessed statistical possibility. She was on her way to the kitchen when she heard voice coming from the main screen room.

"—and I called in our favor at the Fridge to inquiry about the package."

"Surgical status?"

It was clearly May's voice talking to whoever was on the screen.

"They said he made it out of surgery, but was still in the ICU. It seems you fractured his skull in three places, which was compressing his brain, as well as a collar bone, cheekbone, and nose. If he makes it through another day or so, he'll be moved to the Fridge. He may not be dead, but he definitely won't be on the cover of any magazines for a while. Apparently brain surgery leaves nasty scars."

"Pity."

Skye snuck a peek and had to clamp a hand over her mouth when she recognized the face on the screen talking to May. The red hair, pale skin, and bright green eyes were a dead giveaway for the Russian spy.

She knew how May valued her privacy and the specialist obviously didn't like her, and eavesdropping on a clearly private (probably classified) call wouldn't make their relationship better, so Skye was going to sneak back around to the kitchen the long way, until a question stopped her short.

"How's your duckling holding up?"

Skye's breath was baited as she waited for May's answer.

"Doing better. Bored out of her mind."

There was a chuckle on the other end.

"Naturally."

"The doctor thinks she should be up and walking by the end of the month. I keep sneaking her laptop back into the cube they have her holed up in. She's in recovery not isolation, but Simmons keeps taking it away. She hasn't figured out how it keeps getting back in there. Skye's strong though, she should make a full recovery."

Skye felt her chest swell with such a strong feeling an excitement, adrenaline, and warmth at once. She bit her lip to calm her racing heart and pressed her back against the wall, listening closely.

"And how are you holding up with all of this happening so close to…"

"Don't be a наседка, Nat."

May's voice was unnaturally soft.

"You saved this one, сестра, allow yourself that solace at least."

There was a moment's pause and Skye thought May lost her connection before— "Oh and Hill mentioned that they picked Morse to be the head of the welcoming committee for the package. I'm sure she'll be more than happy to see you've started the cake decoration early."

May chuckled and Skye felt her heart thump loudly at the noise. "Well if it can't be one of us, then I'm happy it's Bobbi," May responded.

"She'll keep us in the loop after London. All right, its morning here and I told Clint I would pick up him up bagels if he took the night shift. Next time, were in the same time zone we're going drinking and sparing."

"быть безопасным," May said (' _be safe_ ') and Skye could hear the smile in her voice.

"оставаться в контакте." (' _keep in touch_ ')

"You know it's rude to ease drop."

Skye had taken three steps to sneak away from the screen and May. Startled, she gasped, and lost her footing. She cried out as she felt her abdomen twist and a flame of fire go through her body. It was impossible for May to move as fast as she did; one moment she was in front of the screen and the next she had caught Skye before she hit the ground.

"Easy, easy," May was saying as Skye tried to breathe. "Let's get you back in bed."

The pain was subsiding to a more manageable rate by the time May helped her back into the ICU bed. Her forehead was sweaty and she could feel her heart beating through her clothes.

"Let me see your stitches," May said grabbing a sterile suture set from the cabinet behind the bed.

"God," Skye gasped, pressing a hand down on the wound, as if it would stop the pounding pain radiating from it, "Simmons is going to kill me," Skye muttered under her breath as she lifted up her shirt, exposing the stitches to May.

"Focus on your breathing," May commanded as she sat on the edge of the bed next to Skye, opening the suture kit.

"That was the Black Widow."

"You've pulled one of your stitches, probably from the fall."

"You _know_ the Black Widow?"

"Natasha was checking up on something for me."

" _Natas_ —you're on a _first name basis_ with—"

" _Agent Romanoff_ ," May cut in, not looking up fro her task, "is a very valued and respected S.H.I.E.L.D. operative."

"You're a kill joy, you know that, right?"

May's smirk was small, but bright enough for Skye to catch. "Stop moving while I fix your stitches before Simmons sees them." There was a playfulness in her tone that Skye hadn't heard before.

Her hands were fluid and precise as she cut the twist stitch and retied the knot. "You're awfully good at this," Skye said lightly, "sure you're not a doctor?"

May rolled her eyes, but didn't answer.

"Were you uh…talking about Ian Quinn back there?" Skye bit her lip and watched the older woman for a response. May's hands didn't pause as they reapplied the bandages to the wound and dropped Skye's flannel shirt.

"Yes."

"Oh."

May's eyes met her face finally, her dark eyes intent and focused. "Quinn made it through surgery and it being moved to the Fridge where, after intensive interrogation, he will spend the rest of his life in a very tiny box under constant monitoring."

Cold relief ran down the back of her neck and she exhaled, leaning back on the pillows. "Ward said you almost beat him to death," she ventured slowly.

"Did he?" she remarked, raising an eyebrow. Her hands wrapped the suture kit and threw it into the trash. Skye frowned and tried a different approach.

"Do you always make classified phone calls to kick ass Avengers in the middle of the night?"

"My call to Agent Romanoff wasn't classified nor was it any of your business."

"You were talking about me!"

May leaned back in her chair.

"Why were you out of bed against medical advice?"

Skye wrinkled her noise, "well I was kinda hoping there was some left of chocolate ice cream in the fridge. I know Coulson keeps a stash of Rocky Road in the back behind the month old frozen hot dogs."

"Ice cream, huh?"


	2. Jemma

Tags to 1x06 "FZZT".

* * *

Jemma Simmons was not ashamed to say she was frightened. Terrified. Out of her mind with panic. After officers had fished her and Ward out of the water, they had jerked her from the specialist's arms and separated the two, throwing her into a detainment cell.

Foreign languages had never been her strong suit and their Spanish was loud and threatening. She knew they wanted to what was in the syringe that saved her life and why they were in the middle of the Atlantic with a parachute, but the only thing she could do was curl into a ball.

After an hour of screaming, they left her alone, par the one large guard outside her cell door, as if she could break through the concrete door. The man guarding her was huge and ugly. She had been dripping cold Atlantic water on the concrete floor and she could feel a chill settling into her bones.

In the back of her mind, she knew the team was looking for, but her current state seemed bleak. "Oh Jemma, why did you have to go into the field," she muttered to herself, rubbing her eyes with her still sopping wet sweater sleeve.

"No, you'll take me to her immediately. I don't care who your boss is."

She recognized that voice. Relief flooded through her and she couldn't stop the tears that sprung to her eyes.

 _May was here._

She wasn't surprised when a moment later the concrete and metal door swung open and the Chinese woman moved in. Jemma pounced on her the second she entered, her arms wrapping around the Specialist's neck like a boa constrictor.

Another wave of tears overtook her and she was very surprised the normally personal space wary and distant woman allowed her to hold on at all. Behind them, the guard moved towards them, hand moving towards the baton at his waist.

May seemed to be aware of this immediately. "Back up," May warned, the danger clear in her tone. The guard, clearly at least two times her size looked down at her warily, clearly knowing who she was, and took a distanced three steps back to the cell door.

"That's Juan," Jemma said with another sniffle, letting go of May's neck, "he doesn't talk much."

She swore she saw a smirk on May's face as she ordered behind her in Spanish, "Haz me una toalla. _Ahora_."

The guard immediately obeyed the woman's command. May kneeled in front of the younger woman, looking her up and down. "Are you all right?" she asked, inspecting her.

"They took Agent Ward," Jemma informed her, "I-I don't know where, they separated us before—"

"Coulson's getting Ward," May stopped her, "he attacked a guard and they moved him to a more secure location."

Simmons nodded and she felt more relief settle the knot in her stomach. "My foot won't stop shaking," she said with a small smile on her face, glancing down at her softly quaking loafer, which were now ruined.

"It's the adrenaline. It'll wear off in a few hours."

The scientist nodded. She knew that, of course, but it was nice to hear the older woman say it. A silence fell over the two. May's dark eyes kept checking and rechecking every part of the soaked agent.

"That was a pretty stupid thing to do, you know. Fitz is quite distraught over your tumble out of the Bus."

Her voice was gentle, but the words made Jemma blush. She glanced down at her feet. "I didn't want anyone else to get hurt."

She lifted a hand to tuck a waterlogged chunk of hair behind her ear only to find shaking fingers. May's hand took her wrist, stopping the tremors with gentle pressure. An overwhelming sense of calm washed over her.

"Next time, give us the choice of whether we'd be better off without you or being electrocuted by an alien virus."

Jemma's hazel eyes jumped up to May's large dark ones and she felt her throat close.

The guard was back with a loud clank of the metal doors and May moved to her feet accepting the blanket from the robust man. She wrapped the blanket around the scientist's tired shoulders and for the first time all day, Jemma Simmons felt safe.


	3. Fitz

Leopold Fitz was miserable.

And frustrated.

And angry.

Everything Simmons did made him want to scream.

It wasn't that she wasn't being helpful or kind or incredibly sweet. It was the look in her eyes every time she looked at him that made him so angry, he could choke her. Which he would, of course, never even fathom. But between Simmons' expectant looks and the unsuccessful physical therapy three times a day, he was tired of living this way.

He was staring at the ceiling muttering under his breath to himself when he saw her silhouette in the doorway.

"May. H-hi."

His heart accelerated as she entered the room and sat on the end of his hospital bed. The dimmed lights of the quiet hospital wing and moonlight from the half closed window made her seem even more iridescent and mysterious.

He wasn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't the large hardback copy of " _2000 Leagues Under the Sea",_ a graduation gift from the Academy from his parents, one of the driving reasons for him to pursue science.

May didn't say anything and sat the book on the covers between them, intent clear.

"I-I c-can't."

May's eyes remained steady on his face. "Your three PhDs say differently," she said smoothly, an eyebrow raised.

He glared at her from across the bed.

He swore he saw a flicker of a smirk on her lips and he jerked the hardback off the covers which made the smirk even more evident to untrained eyes.

He made it through the first five words without stumbling.

His eyes flew to the specialist, embarrassment red on his cheeks, but the look in her eyes wasn't what he expected. There was patience and expectation, concern, but no pity. None of the pity that seemed to melt off the other members of the team's faces when they came to visit.

So he glanced back down at the page and tried again.

The second night she came back, she didn't say anything, merely handed him the book and let him turn the pages himself with shaky, uncoordinated hands.

The fourth night, he got so angry he threw the book against the wall.

"This a waste is time of!" He threw his hands up in the air, frustrated at the fragmented bits of a sentence and at the woman in front of him. He didn't understand May's lack of response. Simmons would have jumped or ducked, but May just watched him calmly, let him throw his tantrum and waited for him to finish. "Ya-you ca-can't f-fix this. Wh-why bother ev-ven."

He felt rage bubble in his chest, drowning him.

"I'm broken!" he shouted at her, angry tears streaking down his cheeks.

Something he couldn't describe flashed in the pilot's eyes.

"Every hero is."

Fitz couldn't explain if it was the look she gave him or the words she spoke, but something magical in her made the engineer turn back to the book he had haphazardly thrown against the wall and begin to read again.


	4. Maria

Maria Hill groaned as she dropped on the mat again by her Supervising Officer. She was exhausted, bruised from training, and sore everywhere. She had been up for the past twenty nine hours and the only thing she wanted was a warm bath and her bed.

"You're not listening. Concentrate."

The young Chinese woman stood over Maria looking down with a deadpanned look on her face.

"I'm trying!" Hill hissed hotly, "You're too damn fast. I can't keep up."

As the words exited her mouth, she knew they were the wrong choice; her mentor was a volatile explosive on a hair wire and no failsafe switch. But she was also Hill's third S.O. since graduating from the Communications Academy and she wasn't sure she was going to get another one after an incident that set her previous S.O. on fire.

If she got rid of May, she was done.

But this woman was insane.

She had heard of Melinda May; everyone knew about her. She hadn't expect the ninja like spy who was passing up through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ranks. She was the Specialist on the Alpha Strike Team—the director's go to for everything classified.

Hill hadn't expected a tiny, explosive Chinese girl not much older than herself.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know the enemy was just waiting around for you to be ready."

Hill rolled her eyes.

"I'm not always going to be here to save your ass when you realize can't protect yourself let alone anyone else. _Again_."

Maria made it through the first three steps (step, jab, duck) before May flipped her again and she crashed into the mat. Hill growled in frustration under her breath and flipped over onto her back feeling her ribs sting in protest.

The doors to the gym opened and Phil Coulson walked into. Maria sighed and relaxed against the sweaty ground. _Thank God for Phil Coulson._

"You know killing your Rookies in the first month is generally looked down upon," he called cheekily coming across the room. His sky blue button up stood out against the blacks and greys of the Hub's standard decorating and workout equipment.

"Hi Coulson," Hill called over not moving from her position on the mat.

"Agent Hill," he greeted her, "Mel, we gotta go."

"Now?"

"Wheels up in ten," he said with a nod towards the door, "we should be back in forty eight hours so you can get back to whatever it is the two of you are up to."

"Torture training," Hill called up cheekily from the floor.

May rolled her eyes. "Tell Blake to keep his hands off the stick. I'll be right there," she called over her shoulder. Hill had moved to get up, only to have May's foot snake around her ankle, tripping her.

"Hey," Maria protested, falling back onto the mat with a dull thud.

"I don't know why O'Brian and Soto handed you off, nor do I care." Her large, intense brown eyes marked Hill. "It's my job to keep you safe until you can you do it yourself. I can teach you all there is about espionage, combat, rescue, retrieval, languages, travel—everything there is to be a specialist and stay alive. However, that's granted you don't give up on me, like you did on them."

For once in her life, Maria Hill had lost her voice.

"So I'm going to go on this mission and when I'm back, we're going to start this again."

Three years later when the firefight was the only thing her mind could focus on and everything else faded to black, her body remembered how to keep her alive. She ducked out of the way with a twist she didn't know she even remembered. Bodies of fellow agents dropped around her like flies and her steady hands cocked and fired without having to aim.

"Hill!"

Fury's voice was scratchy on the comm. "I'm here."

"Barton's turned. They have the tesseract."

She didn't stop to ponder on the betrayal. She knew better than that.

"I got him. Engaging hostiles."

She was trained by the best after all.

Shots turned the wall behind her to dust as she rolled to the ground. Hill jumped into the closet jeep, not stopping to buckle or barely close the door, and slammed her foot on the gas, all the while silently thanking Melinda May for not giving up her.


	5. Natasha

Natalia Romanova was handcuffed to an office conference room table.

She was still wore the clothes she had when Barton had managed to capture her in Turkey under twelve hours ago: a black cat suit. One of her favorite. The left side was soaked with blood and some of it stuck in her hair which hung dully around her face.

Outside the door, she could still clearly hear the one eyed yelling at Barton. He looked in worse shape than her. Half of his face still swollen from the right cross she had hit him with early on in their encounter.

Her lips twitched slightly at the memory.

"You had one job, Agent Barton—"

She didn't hear Clint's response. The man was an interesting read. She had underestimated his ability to be a challenge. He had done something no one had been able to do in a long time: surprise her. When instead of pulling the trigger and completing his mission, he handcuffed her.

"She's a ticking time bomb. Uncontrolled and a liability. What are we supposed to do with someone we can't beat? I sent you to take care of her and you brought her back."

Eyepatch growled under his breath and rubbed his face.

"Get May in here."

"But, sir, she's—"

"Just do it."

Their best interrogator, she assumed, and turned to continue observing the room, the number of windows, the weak points in the room's anatomy, the number of guards walking around the different rooms.

Only moments later, a blonde man in a suit appeared down the hallway with a smaller woman. His bright blue eyes were trained on the woman walking with him. His hand floated near the small of her back. She was Chinese, probably about the same as Natalia herself with a small, athletic build. She had dark hair that curled around her shoulder blades.

There was something familiar about the way she walked.

They stopped just in front of Barton and eyepatch. The woman was quiet, not saying anything, but her posture stiffened almost unnoticeably.

"Sir!" The well-dressed suit had broken the quiet tone they had begun with. Clearly he wasn't happy about something. She doubted it had anything to do with him and everything to do with the woman next to him.

The woman glanced into the room and Natalia met her eyes. They were dark brown; large and intelligent. She didn't break contact with the brown irises until the other woman did, turning back towards her boss. Natalia felt her breath stop for a moment as she recognized the look in the woman's eyes.

 _Broken_.

She was good at masking it, very good, in fact. _So good_ that Natalia had almost missed it. The only thing that had made her recognize that was that she saw it every time she was accosted by her own reflection.

She was nodding slowly to something the man, clearly in charge, was saying. Natalia turned away when she heard them take steps towards the conference room door. She felt her muscles tighten and her back straighten, readying herself for what was about to begin.

The woman trailed after Barton with a dozen armed men following them inside. The four agents sat down across from her on the table and she eyed each one, before setting her attention on Barton, who was decisively not looking in her direction.

"Miss Romanova," the man in charge said smoothly, "we have quite a problem on our hands."

"Do we?"

He folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. "You see, we don't know what to do with you."

And in that moment, she found her window.

Her hands had managed to twist out of the cuffs attached to the table and she flew up from the chair. The others around her scrambled to react.

Bullets rang out and glass shattered behind them.

She dropped Barton with three moves and she heard a sharp shout when he landed among the glass. She ducked an attack from the one eyed man and struck the man in the suit with a punch to the gut. She spun with the grace of a dancer and turned on the woman and other guards. They couldn't risk shooting when she was weaving in and out of their people like a cyclone so quickly.

The Chinese woman ducked under her attack and blocked a kick, returning with a spinning one of her own. Natalia parried and flipped out of the way, attempting to knock into her with one of the conference table chairs.

There was something about her face in those moments that bothered the red headed Russian. They grappled for a moment before the woman blocked Natalia's arms and hit her square in the chest.

Natalia hit the ground hard.

A shock echoed through her body painfully. _What the hell kind of move was that?_ Her lungs struggled to regain her breath. Before she could move again she heard a dozen guns cock and she didn't chance moving from her position on the dirty carpeted floors.

Her green eyes looked up at the tiny Chinese woman who was calmly watching her just where she had stood when she had hit Natalia.

"Who the hell are you?" she snarled.

"Melinda," she said smoothly.

Her face still hadn't changed from the controlled calm mask it was when they entered.

"Это не оченькитайское название," she muttered under her breath. That seemed to make the woman smirked slightly, the first show of emotion she had displayed since their introduction. _'_

 _That isn't a very Chinese name.'_

"Я здесь, чтобы убедиться, что они не выполняют вас," she returned smoothly and Natalia's head snapped up at her language. _'I'm here to make sure they don't execute you.'_

"Зачем тебе это делать?"

' _Why would you do that?'_

"Это было бы пустой тратой пулю в кого-то с ваших навыков. Позвольте мне помочь вам," she said with a shrug. Natalia read her face for any sign of deception, but couldn't find anything but composure. _'It would be a waste to put a bullet in someone with your skills. Let me help you.'_

Just who was this woman?

After a moment of silence, the woman extended a slender pale hand towards Natalia's fallen figure.

"Melinda—" the blonde man snapped in warning, his eyes wide on the woman. The one-eyed man held up a hand to silence the suit. She didn't turn at the sound of his voice. Her eyes were fixed on Natalia, as if questioning what she wanted to do.

Natalia took the offered hand, though she wasn't sure why. She could have taken out at least half the guards with the opportunity this Melinda was giving her, but she didn't. And for some reason, that frightened her even more than being beaten so quickly.

The Chinese woman was calm, but on edge, Natalia knew from her tensed muscles, but pulled her up to her feet. "Come on," she said dropping into English calmly, not looking around at the dozen large guns pointed at them or the group of men watching them, "let's get you cleaned up."

And for the first time since she was a small child, Natalia didn't feel alone.


	6. Bobbi

_After season 3, I decided that this could use another chapter. Reviews and feedback are appreciated! Check me out on AO3 and tumblr cateliot: most of my SHIELD pieces go up there first before eventually being updated here._

* * *

She was doing her paperwork.

It had become her habit, Bobbi had noticed, doing useless paperwork in the middle of the night to avoid going to bed. She wasn't sure if it was some kind of residual tick from when she worked in Administration (the paperwork she was filling out was basically worthless, save the field report that went to Coulson) but if she were to ask, May would probably give her some song and dance about the importance of after action incident reports.

"Uh, May?"

May's dark eyes found her instantly. She watched as May took in her unusually nervous stance. She knew she looked odd; her hands were twisted around themselves (if they had been anywhere close to the gym, they'd have batons in them and she'd be pacing).

"Bobbi?"

A wave of uneasiness rolled over the blonde's shoulder. Perhaps she shouldn't have come; May had enough to bother with without her coming to her in the middle of the night. But her words came out in a rush anyways.

"I…uh…need a favor?"

"Okay."

Bobbi blinked once, as if the simplicity of May's answer startled her, like she was expecting a rejection. But May was on her feet before she realized just what she had asked and suddenly the specialist was standing in front of her, waiting.

No words rose to her mouth (that was okay though, May appreciated actions more than talking, anyway) so Bobbi simply turned on her heels and walked towards their destination: an unused communal bathroom.

Where three pregnancy tests sat on the counter top.

If May was going to react, she didn't make it visible to the blonde.

"I just…need someone to wait with me."

"Okay," May repeated her earlier sentiment.

She moved with a grace that Bobbi had always admired (perhaps secretly envied) and locked the main door behind them. She flipped the lights onto dim mode and popped herself up on the counter top. Her feet dangled off the edge in a way that reminded Bobbi just how small the woman really was.

A wave of relief crashed over the younger agent.

"Okay," Bobbi repeated and grabbed the boxes, disappearing into one of the stalls.

Not a minute later, she returned with the plastic test strips.

"The instructions said two minutes," she informed the older agent, who nodded. There was a brief moment of silence before Bobbi felt the need to explain herself again. "It's not that I didn't want to tell Hunter, it's just…what if it isn't anything to tell and I—"

"It's okay to want to know how you feel before telling him."

Bobbi felt herself nod.

 _Yes. Exactly._

"I didn't think that I'd take the test if I didn't tell someone else, but I…"

There was a pause and May's eyes had become fixed on something on the back wall that Bobbi couldn't identify.

"You could be in danger in the field if you don't know," something sounded _off_ in May's voice and something akin to agony washed over May's features for a split second before it was gone. Bobbi could have blamed it on the dim lighting or the emotions rushing through her own mind, but later, when she reflected on it in the quiet of her room, she knew she hadn't made it up.

Perhaps she didn't know as much about the Chinese woman as she thought.

The timer on Bobbi's phone binged with a loud shill tone that made both women jump. It would be silly to ask May to look first (she had already embarrassed herself enough for one night in front of the woman she had always quietly admired) so she forced herself to face the sticks in front of her.

All three were negative.

She blinked and looked up at May, who eyes were on her, face openly blank, watching Bobbi for her first reaction.

"Negative. They're all negative."

"Are we happy or upset?" May's voice was gentler than she had heard before.

Bobbi swallowed once. "Happy, I think. Relieved. This would be a terribly inconvenient time for a baby. With all the Inhumans and HYDRA running loose and Hunter, I mean he is literally a toddler all by himself, it'd be like having two kids to deal with."

The lie sounded flat in the air.

"It's always an inconvenient time for a child."

May stood up as quietly as she had sat down. Her hand brushes Bobbi's intentionally as she moved towards the door. (It's the first time they've touched outside a battle.)

"Goodnight, Barbara."


End file.
